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Pro-consumer, anti-DRM. Never be satisfied with any answer. Dig until you drop.

Posts

6,670

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

That's implying that word of mouth is only spread by people who pirate the game.

I'm not - you can spread word-of-mouth with legal copies too. But there are way more pirate copies out there than legal copies, so it makes sense to think that piracy is more effective at spreading word-of-mouth than legal copies.

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

I wish Adobe had walled off Photoshop and it's other software. The amount of useless ***** using Photoshop as a page layout program is astonishing. Nevermind they don't understand basic terms such as bleed, colour management, colour profiles, typography, imposition, scale, basic design principles, and a couple of dozen other things.

Does it matter, though? There will always be terrible graphics designers out there. Adobe makes a killing out of training people to use their software anyway.

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

Although, personally I do know people who are leading contributors to the Adobe community who admit they first pirated the software, then bought it later. But it's hardly comparable to football manager. With a Creative Suite for adobe costing in the €1000's compared to €30 for Football Manager.

Football Manager's audience is much larger than Photoshop's. In addition, SI release versions of Football Manager more often than Adobe release Photoshop.

It is comparable, even if on different scales. People fall in love with the software, and will become loyal customers in the end. Why do you think some people don't pirate?

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

Yeh there are people that will Pirate then buy later. But most won't.

Does it matter if most won't? Like I said, the piracy numbers are really meaningless in the sense that those who don't buy (later) still make no difference to SI's bottom line.

What matters in this case are those who pirate and buy later. Those who pirate and don't buy are potential customers who are still not tempted to jump over, but the number is an largely insignificant number like the average number of hairs on customers' heads.

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

And if they do enjoy it and piracy is made more difficult for them, they are likely to buy it than not.

No - they could simply not buy it at all, and ignore about the series altogether. It's debatable which is more likely, but if they can't be bothered to buy software, they might just play something else.

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

Piracy existed before the internet for all software. The internet just accelerates it. And I applaud any measure to slow it down.

Piracy is so lethal to the industry that the software industry is larger than ever and has grown in tandem with the hardware market.

Reducing piracy is meaningless - like I said, a million pirates is no different to a billion pirates. What you really want to do is kill piracy through conversion to legal, not killing avenues for piracy. If your sales go up, your piracy rate might go up - it doesn't matter - what matters is that you boost your sales. Killing avenues for piracy does not necessarily increase sales.

Steam might reduce piracy (I doubt this, but I'll humour you), but unless it brings more sales to the table, you are spending money for nothing.

There is none. You can have one copy in offline mode and one in online mode playing at the same time, but this is in violation with the terms of use.

Thanks, so is piracy and this is supposed to prevent it. If what you say is true, then isn't it making it easier for people to exercise one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization, rather than harder?

Well... only if you consider an email address "personal information", which I suppose one might, but even then it's hardly sensitive information. You don't actually have to provide anything personally identifiable to use at least Steam.

Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.

Posts

29,837

Originally Posted by pigfacemonkeyman

Thanks, so is piracy and this is supposed to prevent it. If what you say is true, then isn't it making it easier for people to exercise one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization, rather than harder?

You should be looking for your answers on the Steam website/forums, we're not going to allow discussion here on ways to circumvent terms of use etc, even if it's just out of curiosity and even if the suggestions aren't viable, so please desist, ta muchly.

Pro-consumer, anti-DRM. Never be satisfied with any answer. Dig until you drop.

Posts

6,670

Originally Posted by Scab

Well... only if you consider an email address "personal information", which I suppose one might, but even then it's hardly sensitive information. You don't actually have to provide anything personally identifiable to use at least Steam.

You can correlate that email address to other things, though - find the email or username somewhere, correlate to forum posts, correlate to Facebook profile...

If you are setting up a dummy emaiil address solely for this purpose, you need to maintain multiple email addresses (more risky) in case you lose access to your Steam account for any reason.

Thanks, so is piracy and this is supposed to prevent it. If what you say is true, then isn't it making it easier for people to exercise one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization, rather than harder?

It's fairly easy for two people to share one copy against the terms, but this was the case before Steam as well. Steam probably makes it a bit more annoying if anything, considering the offline install needs to go online at some point for patching.

Doesn't matter what I say, or you say. There's always a counter argument. I could go through your post and counter it. But you already know what the counter arguments to your post are, as I did when I made my post.

Pro-consumer, anti-DRM. Never be satisfied with any answer. Dig until you drop.

Posts

6,670

Originally Posted by Dune297

And why would they try to find those?

Good question... A lot of identity fraud victims don't know they are victims.

Privacy is about reducing your visible (online) footprint, for safety reasons and to avoid fraud. The reason some people are victims of identity fraud is because they didn't keep their details secure enough - not for any external, deeper, mysterious reason.

Good question... A lot of identity fraud victims don't know they are victims.

Privacy is about reducing your visible (online) footprint, for safety reasons and to avoid fraud. The reason some people are victims of identity fraud is because they didn't keep their details secure enough - not for any external, deeper, mysterious reason.

The only thing you have to disclose is an email address. And if you setup an alter ego email address you don't even have to manage that account anymore. You can simply set your alter ego address to automatically forward messages to your current email address.

Any time you get an email from Steam about your account it gets forward from Fake Email to Real Email.

Perhaps someone else would care to point them out. It's several times we've gone tit for tat, at the moment I'm not in the mood to go that route. I might tomorrow.

But your arguments are flawed. Example, you keep saying that if people stop pirating it doesn't mean sales will go up. Well that's not true. They certainly won't go down as a sale was never made in the first place. So they'll either remain the same or go up. And it's more likely they'll go up as people that enjoy the game will want to play it. They could choose not to buy it, but that won't damage sales, as they were never a purchaser of the game in the first place.

I actually agree with you the steam pricing is a bit off especially outside of the UK, search around you will def be able to get it cheaper either online or off the shelf and like i say its just a case of activating it through steam as usual, no need to give them any of your money if you dont want too

You need to be properly accurate, if you have problems running Steam and have any of those applications, they MAY be the cause, not they WILL cause Steam to malfunction.

I have four on that list and Steam runs just fine for me.

i got sick of uninstalling my programs to get steam going, but finally got steam working after i uninstalled advanced window care. So after the hassle of trying to get steam to work i will not be buying fm12 this year as fm was the only pc game i bought.

the list will come in handy on release day when the steam meltdown happens

Pro-consumer, anti-DRM. Never be satisfied with any answer. Dig until you drop.

Posts

6,670

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

Example, you keep saying that if people stop pirating it doesn't mean sales will go up. Well that's not true. They certainly won't go down as a sale was never made in the first place.

There's no point in talking about sales that were made in the first place, since you cannot go back in time. You can only increase sales for the future version of the software.

Pirates who buy after pirating will no longer pirate and will not buy. That's a loss in sales.

If piracy is eliminated or reduced, those who are never made aware of the game through piracy + word-of-mouth (i.e. someone pirates, friend sees them playing this awesome game, they decide to buy) are lost sales.

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

And it's more likely they'll go up as people that enjoy the game will want to play it.

Or, for FM, they might download an updated database and continue to play the old version.

In addition, if they enjoy it, they might be willing to jump through more hoops to pirate.

----

You claimed piracy is theft. Assume it's true and consider this: Say you test-drove an expensive sports car and loved it. You later had an opportunity to steal it
for free and not get caught.

Then imagine that a day later, this expensive sports car cannot be stolen because it has a security guard protecting it.

Do you really think that because you enjoyed the car so much, now that theft is impossible, you will go out and buy this expensive sports car?

You will only buy the sports car if you are willing to part with your money - the reality is that not everyone is going to do so.

People steal (or pirate, although not equivalent) because of opportunity and cost, not because they want to be loyal customers. Make it difficult to pirate and they will see the opportunity as less likely, and might simply walk away.

And on the flip-side, if the car dealer's security guard looks incredibly threatening so that theft is even less welcoming, people will not want to approach the car and look at it. That's what restricting piracy can threaten to do.

The only thing you have to disclose is an email address. And if you setup an alter ego email address you don't even have to manage that account anymore. You can simply set your alter ego address to automatically forward messages to your current email address.

Any time you get an email from Steam about your account it gets forward from Fake Email to Real Email.

But I'm not that paranoid to start doing that.

Thanks for supporting my point. Etiher you live with this information being disclosed (and yes I have receiving all this bloody advertisement spam via email), or you can't play the game. Point is, I need to supply information to play a game. I don't like that, be it just an email address or not. Plus it is something that is not required to run the game, just a DRM measure (and a way to send you spam).

Originally Posted by Scab

Very true. I only object to referring to a service asking for your email as one asking for your "personal information", which suggests full name, home address, etc. I think it's a bit misleading.

See above. Email address is personal information. Not that I generally care about disclosing my email or even post address. I just don't want to be forced to do it.

Originally Posted by Eugene Tyson

Perhaps someone else would care to point them out. It's several times we've gone tit for tat, at the moment I'm not in the mood to go that route. I might tomorrow.

But your arguments are flawed. Example, you keep saying that if people stop pirating it doesn't mean sales will go up. Well that's not true. They certainly won't go down as a sale was never made in the first place. So they'll either remain the same or go up. And it's more likely they'll go up as people that enjoy the game will want to play it. They could choose not to buy it, but that won't damage sales, as they were never a purchaser of the game in the first place.

you aregue less piracy at least mean the same amount of Sales. As I pointed out before, achieving less piracy through invasive DRM means some people won't buy because of this crap. So 10 people buy instead of downloading since the DRM took 2 days longer to be cracked and 10 people wait for the crack to be available and download since they don't want to go through all this DRM nonsense.

How many people do you think were pirating FM a couple of years back when it became obvious that there is a generic issue with the activation codes? and that isn't even invasive DRM!

I agree with one thing you said - it's catch 22 I have read the pro's you mentioned before, and I don'T agree. You have read the cons I point out before, and you don't agree. I need to get to work now anyway.

The reason I can't buy FM12 is, I buy the game boxed in the shop SI tell me I've got to download steam, then steam says it wont run with the programs I have installed on my computer (hence the list of programs you need to uninstall or stop before using steam)

The following applications have been known to cause issues with Steam and playing games:Anti-Virus Applications - Any Anti-Virus program could potentially block Steam and Steam game access, especially when not properly configured for use with Steam. Please make sure that Steam and all Steam games are listed as exceptions in these programs. If the issue persists, please try disabling or temporarily uninstalling the program to test the issue.

* We recommend that applications listed in bold with a ( * ) symbol are fully uninstalled from your system if disabling them does not resolve the issue

Originally Posted by Rhazmuz

@pele10

I run STEAM and I run several of the programs on that list as well.

I suggest you try and download STEAM, make an account and see if it doesnt work on your PC

Originally Posted by Kriss

You need to be properly accurate, if you have problems running Steam and have any of those applications, they MAY be the cause, not they WILL cause Steam to malfunction.

I have four on that list and Steam runs just fine for me.

and again, as so often, you have missed the point. Almost all of those programs on that list are widely used and have been around a long time, I'd wager that there aren't that many on there that *most* people haven't heard of, come across, or considered buying at some point. To then be told that to play a game they have to (potentially) uninstall software that they (most probably) use regularly is unacceptable! Especially when the reason is not the game software but a 3rd party DRM software that the game manufacturers have no control over.

Then there is the reason why Steam would be incompatible with many of the listed programs... well as they are *mostly* designed to look for software that has malicious characteristics (such as a virus, root-kit, Trojan horse, etc) that must mean that Steam is doing something that these programs are designed to prevent!

Steam is also widely used software, it is therefore in Valve's best interests to ensure that their software is compatible with *most* other software, especially commonly used software as many in the list are. If they can't (or won't) it is because what the software is doing is malicious (or seen as malicious by the above software)... it can't be for any other reason!

Do you really want to install a potentially malicious software on your computer? Would you knowingly install a virus, root-kit, Trojan, key-logger or whatever on your computer? Of course you wouldn't, yet Steam, which is incompatible with oh so many common security programs, is OK cos "Valve are a massive company"?

Originally Posted by LaTTsSpURs

Surely that means every multi player game is pro piracy?, also if nomore than the one person who bought the game can play it why can you add manager to create one or more managers of a team? seems exactly the same to me unless the original owner had to be there as well, which as they live in the same house makes that null? Just for clarity i am in no way advocating piracy, just seems we wandered into a grey area

This is the key point. SEGA don't want you to play a multi-player game on the same computer, they want you sat side-by-side on the sofa with a laptop each, a copy of the game each, and playing "on-line" through Steam... don't be surprised to see the "add manager" button removed in future versions...

Originally Posted by bieritarier

UBI Launcher, EA Origin, Securom and the like.

I think we all understood your position, and I don't think anybody has actively supported piracy.

But let'S see what the measures have brought paying customers:
- need to be permanently online (Ubi Launcher)
- requirement to disclose personal information to publishers or other companies (Ubi Launcher, Steam, EA Origin etc).
- specific DRM drivers messing up your system (Securom) or even spying on you in the background (see the Sony Music scandal).
- unskippable anti-piracy messages on Blu Ray and DVD.
- compatibility issues with other (legal) software (Nero image drive and Securom), and therefore a shedload of work to get a game or whatever else running.
- compatibility issues with older hardware (DVD players, DVD drives, CD players, mp3 players)
- limited rights to copy the data (games, music, video) to other devices even for your personal use.
etc.

The only thing pirates have to do (sometimes) is spend some time setting the stuff up. After that, you don't have to suffer from all the invasive DRM.

I stopped buying CDs using DRM measures 5 or 6 years ago since my car headunit had serious issues playing them. And I am not legally allowed to rip the music and copy it across to another medium (CD, USB stick). Luckily I mostly listen to indie bands and most indie labels stopped this crap.

I will not buy from any online music store that uses DRM either. The danger of not being able to play it on either my portable mp3 player of in my car is too high - let alone the other restrictions.

I made my peace with Steam - as long as I can activate a boxed copy of the game. I rarely buy online since STEAM in Germany is a ripoff company. I will not pay twice as much as people in the US or the UK just because STEAM only offers euro prices for Germany.
Equally, I will not buy games of which I cannot activate the much cheaper UK version in Germany - this btw is another example that shows that it's about maximizing profits.

That's just me and quite a lot of my friends. Now would I buy more stuff if these DRM measure were not in place? Probably not since I have bills to pay. Would the companies currently using heavy DRM be making more money from me if they removed the invasive stuff? - most likely since their product are not worse than the stuff I buy. I just don't like the package that comes with it.

So you check the number of customers you lose because they'Re fed up with all the DRM crap. Then that a priate doesn't have to worry about all that crap. What, apart from legal action is the motivation for a pirate to shell out money for something that means a lot more trouble then downloading for free?

There is none... but the more posts that I read in this thread, the more it appears that the *true* targets of this measure are not those guys who will pirate the game deliberately, it's the "un-intentional" and the "ignorant" that are being targeted. The family that wants to play a single player game on 3 different machines at the same time, the brothers that want to share a two-player game, those who sell the game on the second-hand market... all of these will be affected, 100% guaranteed, the real pirates? They'll still pirate it...

Originally Posted by Kriss

You should be looking for your answers on the Steam website/forums, we're not going to allow discussion here on ways to circumvent terms of use etc, even if it's just out of curiosity and even if the suggestions aren't viable, so please desist, ta muchly.

And this is wrong! As the decision to use Steam is a SI/SEGA one, they should be the ones giving the answers to any questions people might have, (because they should have already asked all of these questions anyway...). I do not for one minute believe that SI/SEGA didn't ask these questions, I would have in their position - i.e. "how does this affect my current customer base?". So if they've asked the questions, then they know the answers too... and they don't want to share them because we won't like them... (I refer to all the Steam related questions in general, not just the one you replied to Kriss ).

Toddle off and ask Valve is v.poor customer service... we aren't customers of Valve, we are customers of Sports Interactive and ONLY Sports Interactive (in many cases)! Therefore, Sports Interactive should be answering the questions of their customers...

you aregue less piracy at least mean the same amount of Sales. As I pointed out before, achieving less piracy through invasive DRM means some people won't buy because of this crap. So 10 people buy instead of downloading since the DRM took 2 days longer to be cracked and 10 people wait for the crack to be available and download since they don't want to go through all this DRM nonsense.

How many people do you think were pirating FM a couple of years back when it became obvious that there is a generic issue with the activation codes? and that isn't even invasive DRM!

I agree with one thing you said - it's catch 22 I have read the pro's you mentioned before, and I don'T agree. You have read the cons I point out before, and you don't agree. I need to get to work now anyway.

Yeh and more DRM might mean more people buy it. People may not have bought it in the past due to lack of DRM.

So 10 people don't buy it because of DRM. But what if 20 people buy it because they can't pirate it anymore.

Could easily be 5 people buy it. Or nobody buys it. Or less people buy it.

Then there is the reason why Steam would be incompatible with many of the listed programs... well as they are *mostly* designed to look for software that has malicious characteristics (such as a virus, root-kit, Trojan horse, etc) that must mean that Steam is doing something that these programs are designed to prevent!

Steam is also widely used software, it is therefore in Valve's best interests to ensure that their software is compatible with *most* other software, especially commonly used software as many in the list are. If they can't (or won't) it is because what the software is doing is malicious (or seen as malicious by the above software)... it can't be for any other reason!

Do you really want to install a potentially malicious software on your computer? Would you knowingly install a virus, root-kit, Trojan, key-logger or whatever on your computer? Of course you wouldn't, yet Steam, which is incompatible with oh so many common security programs, is OK cos "Valve are a massive company"?

Potentially malicious? You are kidding me right? It's a program that over 3 million people at any given time use. It's okay because Valve is a massive company who thinks of their customers. So you're telling me I've spent thousands on virus software? I suppose so. Valve shouldn't have to worry about programs not allowing Steam. It's not their problem.